Expert's Rating

Price when reviewed

Best prices today

Dyson Supersonic hair dryer review

Hair drying technology hasn’t changed for around 50 years, mainly because of the bulky motors you find inside the dryers.

The same could have been said for vacuum cleaners until James Dyson’s clever cyclone technology did away with dust bags and brought in stylish new designs and superior cleaning (even without mains power). Dyson somehow made vacuum cleaners sexy!

Dyson has turned its flair for sucking into skills for blowing. Hair dryers actually are meant to help people look sexy, so how does the Dyson hair dryer perform in our tests?

The Dyson Supersonic is a big name for a small device, albeit one with a gasp-worthy price tag.

Dyson Supersonic review: price

Let’s get to the straight to the first talking point: the Dyson Supersonic costs £299.99 or US$399.99. Most other high-end dryers barely touch the £100/ $100 mark.

If you’re after a quick blast to dry your hair after a shower or swim then a basic, cheap hair dryer (£20-£40) is probably fine for your needs. But these won’t be much good at creating complex hairstyles. They’re prone to breaking, and can damage hair with excessive heat.

A professional-style hair dryer will cost £50 to over £100 ($100), but you will get more attachments, functions (such as ionic) and temperature and airflow settings that will help create a wider range of styles.

With the Dyson Supersonic you’re buying not just the cutting edge technology and design, but a statement. Owning a Dyson Supersonic is a bit like owning an Apple product. You get top quality but at a premium price.

But caring for your hair and achieving a great style are serious matters, and with most haircuts and styling costing over £100 a go that £300/$400 investment isn’t as large as it first looks.

If you value your hair’s health that price tag might seem a bit smaller, too. You'll know if the Dyson Supersonic is too much for you. If you think you can stretch that far then restassured that you will be buying a top-quality hair dryer.

Dyson Supersonic review: intelligent heat control

Dyson puts its product advances down to its experience in motor and airflow technology, plus five years of research into “the science of hair”.

We tend to associate healthy hair with shiny hair, and protecting hair from extreme heat will help improve the shine.

When you use any products that goes above 150°C structural changes start to take place in the hair. If hair is heated excessively it can punch holes in the strand, causing light to scatter – with the end result that damaged hair ends up looking dull.

Dyson’s intelligent heat-control system measures the temperature of the airflow, and feeds that information back to the microprocessor 20 times per second. If it starts to get too hot the system will cool down the heating element, which means the airflow will never exceed a certain extreme temperature at the outlet. So when you put the heat setting at the highest level it will always stay at a constant temperature rather than going too high or too low during the styling. Even the “no heat” option is set as a constant 28°C.

Dyson Supersonic review: fast drying

At its highest speed and heat settings the Supersonic is one of the fastest hair dryers available – some testers say that it can dry hair in half the usual time.

Dyson says that the problem with standard hairdryers is that they have conventional motors that are bulky and slow.

The firm's new digital motor, the V9, is at the heart of the new hair dryer, spinning at up to 110,000 revolutions per minute with what Dyson calls an “inaudible frequency”. Again this is down to clever design: the motor uses 13 rather than 11 blades, which pushes one tone within the motor to a sound frequency beyond the audible range of humans. Dyson also uses a rubber mount to reduce the vibration between the handle and the motor.

Maybe Dyson thinks it’s been so long since we associated the word “supersonic” with Concorde (or V9 with racing car engines) that it can use the term for something that’s supposed to be ultra low noise. Actually this Supersonic is really quiet, less than 75dB in our tests. It’s not inaudible but it is noticeably quieter than other dryers.

It’s faster (8x, claims Dyson) and lighter (on average half the weight) than most other dryer motors. Its tiny fan is only 27mm wide.

To dry hair you need a combination of velocity and temperature. Heat on its own would evaporate the water from the hair but it would take a very long time. Velocity helps to strip water off from the surface of the hair.

The V9 motor can create high airflow pressures. It draws in 0.8 cubic metres of airflow per minute, and this is amplified as the air passes through air-multiplier technology to 2.4 cubic metres per minute. That means that the airflow is removing more water so the dryer needs less heat to get the job done.

Dyson Supersonic review: design

The Supersonic is compact and lightweight (560g without attachments), compared to models that can weigh over 1kg. That said, there are hair dryers out there at around the same weight.

Dyson calls the dryer “engineered for balance”. Conventional dryers can be uncomfortable because they are heavy and require odd postures to reach all the hair. If it takes you more than ten minutes to dry your hair, your arm and wrist are going to take the punishment of such heavy, unwieldy dryers.

Due to the much-reduced size of Dyson’s motor it has been removed from the head of the product to the dryer’s handle itself. For better balance the centre of mass has to be moved as close as possible to the hand or pivot point.

And taking the motor from the head allows the length of the dryer barrel to be reduced, meaning it can get closer to the head while your elbow stays closer to your body rather than having to bring the elbow away.

There's another benefit, too: instead of sucking air in the back of the dryer, it's sucked in at the base of the handle. This helps to prevent hair getting sucked in and burned, and we also like that the filter is easily removable to clean.

Dyson Supersonic review: tools and performance

Hair dryers aren’t just for drying hair. They’re also for styling and sculpting hair.

The Dyson Smoothing Nozzle gives a more widespread airflow. This means you can style and dry at the same time, reducing the “race” to get the styling done before the hair is dry. That said some of our testers found that even at low heat the Supersonic dried the hair almost too fast to allow styling.

Our testers were impressed with how drying with the Supersonic made their hair straighter and smoother.

One of our testers curses her hair’s “horrible wave and frizz”. Normally she has to dry her hair and then use straighteners. She praised the Dyson for drying her hair without the need for straighteners. It was also less frizzy. A second tester also came to the same conclusion, saying that her hair was "really smooth - as if straightened - and that it wasn't at all frizzy or flyaway" after using the Supersonic. She was also impressed that the dryer didn't get hot, and was safe to put down immediately after using it (with kids around).

Clever design means that the heat is kept away from the nozzle. Dyson calls this Heat Shield technology, which keeps the surfaces of the attachments cool.

The Dyson diffuser disperses air evenly around curls, helping to reduce frizz and improve definition. The Dyson Concentrator creates wider airflow, so should require fewer brush strokes for precise styling. With the concentrator you can shape your hair one section at a time.

The nozzle and other accessories attach magnetically, which received praise from all of our testers. It brings to mind Apple’s now-missed MagSafe laptop power connectors.

Another boon is the long power cord, which proved much more convenient to all testers, but they did note that this became a slightly disadvantage when storing it.

To change the temperature or speed you need to stop drying, which some might find a bother.

The Supersonic features ionic functionality. The hair is conditioned by negatively charged ions, created by passing air over an electric current. Pumping out negative ions cancels out the static that builds up when you’re touching, brushing and styling your hair. This can help protect hair (especially at high heat), reduce frizz, improve shine and remove static.

Dyson Supersonic review: models

There are four versions of Dyson Supersonic available; you can buy direct from Dyson, or from other retailers such as Boots or John Lewis.

The basic £299.99 (inc VAT) or US$399.99 Dyson Supersonic is available in Fuchsia/Iron and White/Solver colour models. Each comes with the Smoothing Nozzle, Styling Concentrator, Diffuser, non-slip mat and storage hanger.

The choice of colour is a little obvious, given that it’s aimed at women, but we can presume Dyson did its research. Long-haired dudes and non-pinkies might prefer the white version.

The £349.99 / US$449.99 Dyson Supersonic Limited Edition comes with the same accessories as the base model but with a special case designed by James Dyson himself.

There’s also a Dyson Supersonic Professional Edition designed for salons, which ships with a Diffuser, Professional Concentrator, non-slip mat and storage hanger. Dyson actually sells this for a mere £225 (ex VAT) but with a shorter guarantee due to the rigours of usage in a professional environment.

The consumer version of the Supersonic has a two-year parts & labour guarantee.

Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer: Specs

Power: 1,600 Watts

Airflow: 41 litre per second

Weight:
659g

Dimensions: 245-x-78-x-97mm (H x W x D)

Cable length:
2.7m

Power: 1,600 Watts

Airflow: 41 litre per second

Weight:
659g

Dimensions: 245-x-78-x-97mm (H x W x D)

Cable length:
2.7m

SHOULD I BUY DYSON SUPERSONIC HAIR DRYER?

The Dyson Supersonic is a technological wonder (dare we call it “cutting edge”), which promises to be kinder to your precious hair, more comfortable on previously weighed down arms, quiet, and faster at drying and styling. Our testers were impressed with the Supersonic but initially aghast at the high price tag, although we think that £299 isn’t so much money when compared to the price of a quality haircut, let alone the care of your precious hair. You might even save some money by having to use less hair product. It’s very fast at drying (some may find it a little too fast when drying at low speed), super quiet, simple and comfortable to use, and with some neat design features such as the magnetic attachments. There are certainly cheaper, quality hair dryers available but we think the hair-friendly Dyson Supersonic is smart enough to justify the comparatively high price tag.